Game Time: 7 PM
TV / Radio: CSN, Versus, CBC, RDS / 720 AM WGN

I'm on pins and needles right now.  You are too.  I know.  But this feeling of stress, hope, anxiety, desire, this is what we live for.  You could be watching 16 other teams play right now.  You could feel apathetic because the Hawks weren't in the playoffs.  But they made it and there's still that one thing that keeps us watching...hope.

So we know what the Hawks have to do.  Hold serve at home.  All it takes after that is to steal one game in Vancouver.  The series is hardly lost.  Its not as easy as it sounds, but its possible.

Kopecky is still out, and Bickell will be joining him in the press box tonight.  Word from the beat writers is that John Scott will be in the lineup for Bickell.  God help us all.

Dave Bolland is still making progress towards a comeback.  He said he hopes to be back for game 4.  It remains to be seen whether he'll be the same player when he does get back.

The Hawks' top six forwards haven't gotten anything better than a secondary assist.  That needs to change tonight.  There is absolutely no chance to win without some offense from ANY of Toews, Kane, Hossa, Sharp, etc.

The barn will be rocking tonight.  The crowd will be desperate.  The anthem will be intense.  The team will have to match that energy. 

Here is a guest post by Justin Bourne, he of Puck Daddy and USA Today and the Bourne Blog. He is a good person and a man with three hat styles.

"Any time you guys wanna help me out a bit would be great."

I recently heard it justified that the Montreal Canadiens would win their first round series against the Boston Bruins because they had more players on their roster with Cup rings than the Bruins.  Then they pulled out the numbers – it was something like four players to two. While that seems a little ridiculous, having a crap-ton of Cup experience does matter (neither “four” nor “two” qualify as “a crap-ton”) – when things aren’t exactly going perfectly (like, say you’ve fallen behind 2-0 in a series), players can fall back on those past experiences and remember “oh yeah playoffs are a marathon, not a sprint.”  You know there’s no need to suddenly get desperate, sit your best players, dress some AHL guys, sob into some skate towels and call Jeff Gillooly to run a couple quick kneecaps on a Two-For-One-On-Twins Special.
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So the Blackhawks find themselves down two games to none to the Vancouver Canucks in their opening round playoff series. At times the Canucks have looked dominant, at others the Hawks have weathered the storm and simply survived, and even looked dominant themselves at some points. I simply cannot decide if they're already finished or if I should stick to the old saying that it isn't a series until someone loses a home game.

This post will present both sides of my feeble minds' arguments and try to clear things up.

The Hawks entered tonight's tilt with the Canucks needing to adjust their game and get more rebound attempts on Luongo while increasing their net presence. Game 2 is always a pivotal affair in a seven-game series, and the Hawks would love to snag home-ice advantage from the Canucks.

Eight minutes into the game, and after killing off the Hawks’ first power play opportunity, two failed clearing attempts from the Hawks let the ‘Nucks maintain possession. One of the Ugly Twins made a perfect pass from behind the net to Jannik “Sudden Blackhawk Killer” Hansen for a one-timer and an early 1-0 lead.

The first period would end with that 1-0 score, thanks to Corey Crawford a huge save on a 2-on-0 against the Sedins, and the post making a save on Mason Raymond. The physicality would continue and instead of just playing physical with the ‘Nucks, the Hawks started to get frustrated. Eventually, this would boil over when Sharp would eliminate all the momentum that the Hawks started to pick up late in the period by dropping a Canucks’ d-man after a whistle, so the Hawks will start the second on the kill.

Thirty seconds into the second, on the power play, Christian Erhoff would fire a low hard shot to the net where Daniel Sedin was waiting and tipped it home. 2-0 Canucks. Hossa failed to get in the shooting lane at the point and no one bothered to get rid of Sedin in front of the net.

Here's a list of famous twins:

• Jose and Ozzie Canseco
• Two of the uglier children from the TV show where there are a whole bunch of kids
•  The Olsen twins
• Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Ann Landers and Dear Abby
• A pair of guys in Good Charlotte
• Kirby Puckett (oops, wrong kind of Twins)
• George W. Bush's daughters
• The Ying Yang Twins
• The two that inspired that horrible beer commercial where it ended with "AND TWEEEEEEEEEE-INS!?"
• Daniel and Henrik Sedin

What do they all have in common? I hate them.

Game Time: 9:00 PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, Versus, CBC, RDS / 560 AM WIND

Down 1-0, right where we want 'em.  Did any of you really predict a sweep?  I'm glad we got it out of the way early.

Honestly, this would probably help our chances.

Just doing my morning perusal of the internet I came across a fantastic piece from the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford titled "Luongo was brilliant beyond superlatives". In case anyone is unfamiliar with the term, and to foster my usual style of one sided screechy "debate":

Simply put; the word 'superlative' is defined as:

(a noun) an exaggerated mode of expression (usually of praise): "the critics lavished superlatives on it"; (an adjective) the greatest: the highest in quality; - Wikipedia

A selection of their superlative free article contains the following:

In Wednesday's game, he made two breathtaking saves.

it was one of those nights where he made the spectacular happen.

N.B. I was informed the first superlative quoted was actually true: when Luongo made each of the saves in question everyone's breath was literally stolen. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest donating to the British Columbia Emphysema Foundation.

I expect we'll have some new readers around here.  If you like our stuff, follow us on twitter at @AndrewBHDL, @ChiBlackhawks, @KellyBHDL, and @BHDL_Blog.  You can also like us on Facebook.

A few times a year we like to post stuff about a charity or cause we think is worthy.  This time, instead of asking you guys to donate stuff, we took matters into our own hands.  So BHDL has won the charity auction for the guest posting services of some of the most prominent hockey bloggers in the world.

Before I get to all the introductions, I want to let everyone know that the proceeds from the auction are being donated to Right To Play.  Its an awesome charity whose aim is to improve the lives of children in the most disadvantaged areas of the world by using the power of sport and play for development, health, and peace.  They currently have programs in Benin, Botswana, Burundi, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Pakistan, Peru, Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza), Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, and Uganda.  If you want to donate and help kids who have been affected by disease, conflict, and poverty, click this link.

So, onto the bloggers.  This whole thing was kicked off by Chemmy and Lambert, who you might know as those two awesome guys (if you're American) or assholes (if you're Canadian) who were writing about the Americans in the World Junior Tournament.  Chemmy also writes for TheLeafNation.com and PensionPlanPuppets.com.  Lambert writes "What We Learned" on Yahoo's Puck Daddy and writes for FlamesNation.ca and TheTwoLinePass.com.  These guys know how to hate a team, and the Canucks are a pretty easy team to hate.

Others who offered up their posting services are Justin Bourne, who writes for Puck Daddy, USA Today, and Bournes Blog.  When he's not writing about hockey you can find him posting pictures of cats on Twitter.

Justin Goldman from The Goalie Guild is the leading goalie insight on the interwebz.  He's a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and contributes to The Hockey Guild and The Avs Guild.

Last but certainly not least is Down Goes Brown.  If you don't know this guy by now, you've been living under a rock.  His stuff on the internet was so funny that he got a gig writing for The National Post.  This was seen as the first successful move by a newspaper in the last decade.

So get ready, folks.  Shits about to get real. 

Seven minutes into the game, a 2-on-1 rush resulted in a loose puck getting fed to the point where Kevin Bieksa fired a low slapshot towards Crawford. Christopher Higgins tipped it high in the slot and it wound up right in the glove-side corner, leaving Crawford no chance to stop it. Canucks, 1-0.

Halfway through the period, Duncan Keith got swarmed at the Canucks blueline by two Canucks and turned the puck over. Jannik Hansen was able to blow past Marian Hossa to pick up the loose puck and just simply pick a corner. Canucks, 2-0.

With just a few minutes remaining in the first, Patrick Kane made a beautiful feed cross-ice to a sneaking-in Brian Campbell who would one-time the puck low towards the net. Roberto Luongo would make a ridiculous toe save, deflecting it off the post and then covering it up. Easily the Hawks’ best chance of the period.

The first would end with the 2-0 Canucks lead and ALL the momentum on Vancouver’s end. The Hawks were outhit, intimidated, outclassed and outplayed by the Canucks. This was absolutely men playing against boys. The Hawks need to find a different level to compete with the Canucks.

The Hawks played 82 games this season.  It was a roller coaster.  There were some really great moments and some moments that I'm sure a few people threw their remotes through a tv or two.  But its all behind us now.  The playoffs give us a fresh slate.  Every team is 0-0 right now.  The intensity is cranked up to 11.  Every shift matters.

After the run the Blackhawks made last season, it was difficult sitting through games that felt mundane and meaningless.  It reflected in the play on the ice.  Welcome back to "Michael Bay Explosionfest" hockey.

The red light...it burns so good.

I won't sit here and hash over the Canucks roster.  We've beaten that horse to death the past two days.  But we can talk about the Hawks a little.

This won't be easy.  Playoff rounds never are.  But the Hawks will need herculean efforts from their top players.  The Canucks racked up the points this season for a damn good reason.

We haven't heard officially if Bolland or Sharp will play yet.  My gut is telling me Bolland won't but Sharp will.  Lord knows we need Sharp to chip in some offense.

Other than that, its nothing that we haven't seen in the last 82 games.  Play smart, disciplined hockey and try to steal a game in Vancouver.  The series doesn't start until a road team wins a game.  Pick up one here and steal the home ice advantage.

Get excited.  The rush is back.


video from BigCSouthside at SecondCityHockey